Predestination
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Hardcastle gets some late night advice from a guy who knows a lot about having faith.


Disclaimer: They're not my characters and I make no profit from them.

**Author's Note**: I'd have to go back and count, but I'd say I've written more missing scenes and postscripts for "If You Could See What I See" than any other episode except for "The Birthday Present".

Thanks, Owl, for raising the notion of free will, and thank to Cheri and Owl both for the many beta readings and encouragement.

The episode:_ Mark is tired of his housekeeping duties and contacts Millie Denton, the widow of an old cellmate of his. He hires her to take over the domestic side of his job while he and the judge investigate the suspicious death of a lawyer friend of Hardcastle's. While the plot thickens (and the guys close in on a soon-to-be-divorced actor, Dex Falcon, and his shady lawyer, Wendell Price) Millie confesses to Mark that she has precognitive abilities. Her current visions indicate that he will be shot and killed. Despite the dire warnings (and Mark's belief in them), Hardcastle refuses to change course and Mark, tagging along, keeps his rendezvous with destiny and ends up in the Ravine of Doom. It's only Hardcastle's unshakable belief that it ain't over till it's over (and Millie bonding with a synth-pop tape of Mark's) that allow the two to alter fate_

_. . . or did they?_

**Predestination**

by L.M. Lewis

"There's a visitor." The night nurse had leaned in through the door and was speaking quietly.

Hardcastle frowned. It was well after visiting hours and he'd only finagled his own stay in the ICU room by a combination of slinging his weight as McCormick's legal whosit, and his all too obvious concern. Frank had left with Millie an hour ago. The judge didn't have time to consider who else might rate special privileges before the mystery solved itself.

"Father Atia?" he said, already half out of the chair before the priest had stepped into the room. "How did you—?"

"The evening news," the priest said, setting a small black satchel, not unlike an old-fashioned doctor's bag, on the table next to the bed. "I wasn't watching it, but dad called."

The judge felt his frown deepen at the mention of his old nemesis, Atia's mobster father, Joe Cadillac.

"He said you wouldn't think to call." Atia hesitated. "You hadn't . . . called a priest, I mean."

Hardcastle shifted his glance to a less demanding spot than Atia's calmly serious face, from there he took in Mark's form, absolutely still except for the rising and falling of his chest, and that at the rate dictated by the ventilator at the head of the bed. He finally looked back at the priest and shrugged.

"Been kind of distracted."

"Has he been awake at all?"

The judge shook his head. "Only got out of surgery late this afternoon. The doc said he'd keep him knocked out for a while, so he wouldn't fight the machine until he was strong enough to breath without it."

His eyes shifted again, this time to the satchel. "You're here to do that thing—the Last Rites." He said it with awkward reluctance and maybe just a hint of disapproval.

"'Extreme Unction'?" Atia smiled gently. "It's a misnomer, you know. Not the original intention of the Sacrament at all. 'Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up'. You see? That's why we call it the anointing of the sick these days. But you're familiar with it?"

Hardcastle pursed his lips slightly and nodded once. "Seen it, yeah. In the war."

"Ah." Atia gave that a thoughtful nod of his own.

"Lots of young men. Not many of them raised up, though." Hardcastle's frown had settled in for the long haul. He tried to shake it loose. A little gratitude was in order for this late-night visit.

"No offense," he finally added.

Atia didn't seem to be taking any; he was going about the setting up all the same: candles and a small Crucifix, a little bottle of oil. His business gave him a gravitas that far exceeded his age. The candles stayed unlit. Atia was undoubtedly aware of some hospital policy in that regard. The prayers were murmured softly and the oil was applied.

Hardcastle found himself half-expecting something. Whether it would be signs of returning consciousness or a giving up of the ghost, he knew not, but he held his breath in an unspoken prayer of his own.

There was nothing apparent. Atia stood silent for a moment, his hand resting lightly on McCormick's forehead. The official part of the process was over; this seemed to be a more personal intercession. That done, he wiped his fingers on a small cloth and packed his supplies away.

Hardcastle raised his head. "Thank you," he said, and he meant it. "I'm sure he'll want to tell you himself once he's better," he added, with a confidence that strove to include both parts of the assumption.

"It's not me," Atia said. "I'm just a vessel—like the bottle we keep the oil in. God does the dispensing." He closed the satchel and set it down on the floor, but with that done he didn't look in any haste to depart. Hardcastle twitched uneasily under his inspection.

"You look tired," the priest said.

"Long day," Hardcastle sighed wearily, and then on further thought, trying to remember just when he last gotten out of bed, "long _two _days."

Atia nodded and gestured him back to his chair, then pulled another one up from the far side of the room and settled into it. "I don't think Mark would approve of you keeping watch."

The judge grimaced. He'd already had this argument with too many people, starting with Frank and Millie. He was where he needed to be right now and he had no intention of leaving until matters were more settled and someone could tell him McCormick was out of the woods and on the mend.

But Atia didn't seem to be rising to the challenge. If anything he seemed ready to join the watch himself. Milt wasn't sure he wanted the company. This was more in the line of a solitary, self-inflicted penance.

"Well," he said truculently, "I'm staying." And then, aware of his tone, he added, "I don't think I'd be getting much sleep at home anyway."

Atia nodded. "It's hard sometimes—to have faith. My dad, he said that night—the one he spent waiting for the meeting with that hit man—he didn't sleep at all." Atia lapsed into an introspective silence, glancing back over at the man in the bed. It was a moment before he spoke again.

"Pop doesn't surprise too easy," Atia smiled, "but you two sure surprised him that morning, showing up with those file boxes at the crack of dawn. He says he'll never forget that moment."

Hardcastle gave this a non-committal grunt. Breaking into the police impound had not been, in his opinion, his shining hour.

"Pop was planning on going to the meeting anyway—with or without the files, you know. He didn't know if there was anything he could do—but he knew he had to be there."

"Yeah," Hardcastle said, "I get that."

"I figured you would," Atia said, smiling slightly. Then he added, with quiet certainty, "Deseau would have killed him. Me, too, most likely."

This got no more than a nod from Hardcastle. They both knew it was true.

Silence settled over them, with only the comfortingly steady beeps of the monitor, punctuated by the sound of the ventilator. There was a tension, though, that even fatigue couldn't abolish for Hardcastle. He was almost relieved when Atia shifted in his seat again, now looking at him straight on. It was the obvious prelude to a question.

"What did those news guys say about what happened?" the judge said, beating the other man to the punch. He hadn't been anywhere near a television all day and, now that he thought about it, someone had kept the usual pesty swarm of reporters away—Frank, no doubt.

Atia cocked his head. "Well, I mostly heard it from pop. He said Mark had been shot—he was here, and in serious condition--and that two men had been arrested."

Hardcastle grimaced. Hearing the word "serious", even third-hand like that, made it more unavoidably real. Atia hadn't just hustled down here with his candles and his oil on a mission of general goodwill. A life was at stake. He looked up at the monitor. The rhythm had become more regular in the past few hours, but undeniably faster. The last time the night nurse had checked, Mark's temperature had been up—just over 100. The surgeon had warned about this. Far from being over, the storm was still brewing.

As though he'd been following the judge's inner thoughts, Atia said, "How bad is it?"

"Bad enough." Hardcastle dropped his voice. He'd long since given up the notion that Mark could hear anything he was saying—though it hadn't kept him from _trying_—but there were some things he still didn't want to utter out loud.

"Gut shot," he muttered. "It happened last night and we didn't find him till morning. They took him to surgery but the infection, well . . ."

"Some things are still in God's hands," the young priest said, but with a small smile that seemed to imply that it was better that way. Then his expression became more serious again. "But they didn't say _why_ it had happened. Pop said something—one of the men, the lawyer, was crooked and everybody knew it."

"Figures he'd know," Hardcastle said, half to himself. He shook his head. "I shoulda hired your dad as a consultant years back."

"Well, there's 'knowing' and then there's having proof," Atia said, with more chagrin that the judge would have expected from a man of the cloth. "And pop's always had a low opinion of lawyers."

"But you can take this one to the bank," Hardcastle said, settling back into his chair slightly. "He killed a friend of mine a few weeks back. The man's secretary, too."

"And you were investigating?"

"Us," he nodded toward the bed, "yeah."

"It's dangerous, what you two do," Atia said quietly. "But Mark must have understood that."

Hardcastle nodded again, wordlessly. The silence spun out for a moment before he reluctantly added, "Especially this time."

Atia raised his eyebrows slightly but said nothing.

Hardcastle felt his own conscience compelling him on. "Someone told us he'd be shot if we went to that party that night, the one at that lawyer's house."

Atia looked puzzled. "And you didn't take that information to the police?"

Hardcastle glanced to the side evasively. "It wasn't that kind of information." He sighed. "This is gonna sound kinda weird."

The priest was frowning slightly but said nothing. Hardcastle took a breath and started reluctantly.

"See, this lady we know—she's our housekeeper; we just hired her. She was saying Mark was gonna get killed if we kept on investigating these guys."

After a considering pause, Atia nodded slowly. "She was worried. It was dangerous."

"No, not just that." Somehow Hardcastle wasn't willing to leave it at the half-truth, even though he wasn't Catholic and this wasn't a confession. "See, she said she 'saw' things . . . she had these visions."

Atia was frowning now.

"You don't believe in that stuff, do ya?" the judge asked.

"There were prophets," Atia said, after a moment's reflection.

"Oh," Hardcastle's brow furrowed, "yeah."

"But the messages they brought were warnings with an option for change. Look at Jonah, poor man. He had a snit when the people listened to him and his predictions fell through. There was nothing _inevitable_ about prophecy."

"Yeah," the judge's expression did not lighten," and this wouldn't have happened if I'd listened to her . . . to _him_."

"You mean she predicted this very thing?" Atia said, now looking more doubtful.

"Close enough," Hardcastle admitted reluctantly. "That he'd go to the party and be shot and killed."

The priest raised one eyebrow slightly, but it wasn't enough to erase the concern in his expression. "Oracles," he said, "_divination_—that is another matter. To know such things in advance suggests that they are preordained and denies free will."

Hardcastle sat up straighter. "That's what I'd say." Then his shoulders slumped again slightly. "But I didn't listen to her and it _happened_, just like she said it would."

Atia shook his head. "But think about it. If you were to listen to such things, and take steps to avoid them, then the thing which was predicted wouldn't happen, right?"

Hardcastle gave this a moment's thought and then nodded.

"But then, you having avoided 'fate', where would the oracle's prediction have come from?" There would have been no source for the vision, right?"

"Ah—"

"Exactly," Atia smiled.

"But, it _happened_ . . . just like she said it would."

"You mean you and Mark went after a killer and he attacked one of you?"

Hardcastle nodded. Then after a moment's thought he frowned.

"It's happened before," Atia prodded, "hasn't it . . . you were shot last year—?"

"Well . . ."

"See?" The priest spread his hands slightly, palms up, as though he'd just proven a theorem. "Not much need to resort to supernatural guidance there." Then he sobered slightly. "As prophecies go, though, this housekeeper of yours might have a point. What you do _is _dangerous." He looked over toward the bed. "I hope things turn out for the best this time." He stood slowly. "I'll say a Mass for him . . . for both of you." He stooped to pick up his bag.

Hardcastle was on his feet, too, feeling suddenly wearier by far.

"Thank you," he said. "Thanks for coming. I appreciate it." He wasn't sure if that was entirely true, but he did for Mark's sake, at least.

"No problem. You know I wouldn't be here to do it if it weren't for you and him."

Hardcastle looked up sharply from his darkening thoughts.

"I will always be thankful for the risks you two take," Atia said. His smile was sincere. "I couldn't in good conscience deny that."

He cast one more affectionate and concerned look in Mark's direction and then departed, his steps echoing quietly in the hallway. The judge listened to them grow softer and then the ching of the elevator, quieter still.

He didn't sit down again, but moved back to the head of the bed, where Atia had stood.

The conversation started up again, though not exactly where he'd left off.

"When you wake up, kiddo, we're gonna have to have a little talk," he said firmly. "You heard the padre—it's dangerous . . . but you knew that already, huh? Just couldn't convince an old Arkansas mule."

He shook his head. "I never meant to take anything like that away from you . . . your free will—nothing like that." He sighed. "We're gonna have to have a talk."


End file.
